by Nick Carter
When he was dry and dressed in his dry clothes, we sat in the main cabin with drinks in our hands. Already the sky was starting to turn gray outside, but the weariness that had left me hours earlier seemed to be gone forever.
"We've got some time," I said. "Time to talk."
Alex took a monster swallow that emptied his glass of bourbon, held it out for more. "No talk. You and me, we got plenty of time, Nick. For now we sleep a little. Then when you go to pick up tickets for my little sister, Christina and me, we have some time together. Okay?"
* * *
I took the launch to shore a little after nine. The airline office was within walking distance, so I didn't bother looking for a cab. It was an overcast day but not windy; the water lapping against the stone quay seemed gray and lifeless. It matched my mood.
After picking up Christina's ticket I wandered along the promenade aimlessly. This morning there were few strollers in sight. Too early. But the tan Mercedes was parked conspicuously, where the driver and his companion could see my boat. It didn't worry me; unless they used binoculars they couldn't tell what was going on there, and it wouldn't make any difference if they could. Alex had crawled into the chain locker ahead of the forward cabin, made a nest for himself in the cramped space among the damp metal links and announced that he would not come out until we were at sea on the way to Taranto. "When you hide, my friend, you hide. Good night."
I poked listlessly through the souvenir stalls, looking for something to give Christina. Nothing seemed right. I turned back, heading for a big, old hotel not far from where Scylla was moored. I had agreed to stay away while brother and sister had their reunion, and I wondered what they could talk about after all these years.
A bar was open and I wandered in, the only customer in the cavernous, high-ceilinged room. The barman offered a Bloody Mary, he knew a hungover tourist when he saw one, but I decided to stick to bourbon. Normally I'm not a morning drinker, but as far as my system was concerned this was still last night; I hadn't slept at all.
I had a couple of slow ones while I watched the minute hand of an electric clock, the kind they used to have on classroom walls in schools, and maybe still have, click around the dial. It wasn't even eleven o'clock when a uniformed bellman came into the bar, looked around and settled on me.
"Mister Carter?"
I almost said yes before I realized what he'd said. Then I shook my head.
"You… are not Mister Carter?" He was a wizened little fellow, his English impeccable.
"Afraid not. The name's McKee."
"But there is a telephone call for the gentleman at the bar. The lady said the name was Carter." He looked around again, emphasizing that I was the only other person there.
The lady. The damned little fool, I fumed. She must have been up on deck and seen me going into the hotel. And where else was I likely to be but at the bar? I choked back my anger, realizing that something must have happened to make her call me, and in the troubled state she was in she had made a stupid mistake.
"Well," I said amiably, standing up, "I'll take the call if the lady insists. Show me the way." I threw some money on the bar and followed the bellman.
He showed me to a row of house phones along a narrow corridor that led to rest rooms and the rear of the hotel. "Take any phone, and the operator will connect you," he said. I waited until he drifted away, then lifted the receiver. The operator came on immediately. I told her who I was, wincing as I gave my right name, and she asked me to wait a moment. I leaned against the wall, tired and disgusted by this whole slipshod operation.
The soft sound of a door opening behind me didn't register at first. Then I heard the squeak of a shoe, the telltale rustle of clothing as an arm was lifted high. I started to turn, the phone receiver clubbed in my hand, but I was far too late; something smashed against my skull and I dropped to my knees. The only pain I felt was the contact with the marble floor, and I was worrying about those knee injuries from high school football days when the second blow connected and there was nothing left to worry about.
Fourteen
I didn't waste time trying to figure out where I was. The first thing I checked was my knife, and to my surprise I found Hugo still in his sheath under my jacket sleeve. I wasn't tied up, and I seemed to be lying on a bed of some sort. Painfully I opened my eyes; the light was subdued, like daylight on a cloudy afternoon…
Afternoon! I looked at my watch and groaned. It was past two, and I'd been due back at Scylla by noon. I tried to sit up, but a hand pushed me back on the bed. My eyes wouldn't focus; all I could see was a blurred head above me at some impossible height, pulsating in time to the pounding at the back of my skull. For a moment I lay still, willing myself to be calm and see what the hell was going on. Then I tried to push the hand away, but it was hard and firm against my chest. A small hand…
I opened my eyes wide; the face above me began to swim into focus, a face surrounded by a halo of soft blonde curls. Then I saw lips, curled in a smile, above them a nose bent a little bit out of line, and snapping dark eyes that were no more friendly than that smile.
"Sue-Ellen," I croaked. "What the hell…?"
"Just stay lyin' down like a good boy, sweetie. I wouldn't want you to jump up all ugly and fierce like."
"Get your hand off my damned chest. I want to sit up. If I can."
"Okay, honey, you try. But real slow like, you hear?"
Her strong brown hand eased its pressure as I cranked myself into a sitting position. I wasn't on a bed after all, but a huge white couch that could have slept six with no crowding. Cautiously I looked around; if it hadn't been for the round windows we could have been in any run-of-the-mill Park Avenue living room. And then I realized that the gentle rocking under me wasn't just my head.
"Your boat?" I asked.
"Sharp as always, aren't you, Nick? Uh-huh, it's my boat. Or my husband's, whoever he is."
I was too mad to smile. "What the hell is going on here, Sue-Ellen? Who slugged me?"
"Oh, one of my watchdogs. How's your head feel, hon?"
"How do you expect?" I tried to stand up, but with her forefinger she poked me back onto the couch. Sue-Ellen, I remembered, had been Texas All-College Girl Rodeo Champion when she was at SMU, and she hadn't softened up any after ten years and at least three husbands I knew of.
"Too bad. Want a little bourbon and branch?"
"Not right now."
"Had enough this mornin' did you?"
"Not exactly."
"Well, that's what it looked like when you passed out by the phone back at the hotel. Lappin' it up at the bar and all. Lucky one of my watchdogs came along and got you out before the police came along and arrested you for D and D."
"So one of your watchdogs slugged me." I sneaked a look at my watch again; it hadn't gotten any earlier.
"Oh don't worry, sweetie. Your little Greek tart's just waitin' back on that dinky old tub you're travelin' in. Fit to be tied, the way she keeps comin' out on deck and lookin' toward the dock like one of those wives of a whalin' captain on a widow's walk."
"Come on!" I snapped. "What do you want with me?"
Her grin was pure imp, laced with pure whore. She was dressed in a bikini bottom and a shirt she hadn't bothered to button. Her breasts were small, I recalled, but as firm as melon halves. At thirty or so she had the muscular belly of a professional acrobat, and though her legs were beautifully proportioned they had the strength of a lifelong bronc rider, which she was. Sue-Ellen barely topped five feet, but more than once I'd discovered that to subdue her I had to forget she was a girl. She liked that.
She dropped down on the couch beside me, letting the shirt fall open to expose a breast. "You got me in a heap o' trouble last night, Nick. You know?"
"Me? How?"
"Well… what was it? Couple o' days ago this friend of mine saw you in… where was it? Piraeus?"
I nodded. It hurt. "I remember."
"Well, Rhonda, she said you pretended you didn't reme
mber her. Or me. But the way she described you I knew it had to be Nick Carter. Right? Ain't nobody like you, hon."
"I…" It was hard to know exactly what to say. Sue-Ellen knew I did something for the government, because for a time her father had been a Senator on one of the committees that dealt with the CIA and other alphabet security agencies. "You know there are times I can't say hello, even to old friends."
"Uh-huh. Not to old friends like Rhonda, who don't know beans. But when you show that good-lookin' face all over Greece like you've been doin', I know you aren't on any secret mission or whatever you do for Uncle. Pretty man like you, you've got to use disguises, because those bad boys in the Kremlin or wherever, they've got the zap on you." She pointed her finger at me and snapped down the thumb-hammer. "So I got to talkin' a little that night, told 'em what a great… well… friend you were. The bourbon braggin', you know?"
I knew. Much too well. Once or twice I'd almost fallen for Sue-Ellen, but each time her spoiled-little-rich-girl routine, fueled by booze, had rescued me.
"So last night, when we all saw you hoppin' around those dance floors with that ugly ol' Greek girl and you didn't even say hello, well, that burned me."
"But I didn't see you!"
"No? Not even when I was bumpin' my ass against yours for a couple of minutes steady? In that whatchamacallit discothèque, I forget which?"
"I guess… they were all pretty crowded."
"Not that crowded, buddy boy! If you don't know my ass, who does?" She slid closer to me, emphasizing her words appropriately.
"What… what about your husband?"
"Oh, him. Achillion, he's off buyin' some ships in Japan or somewhere. He hasn't been near me more'n half a dozen times since we been married."
"So he leaves you here? With watchdogs?" My head was clearing rapidly now; in an odd way the crack on the skull was counteracting the effects of no sleep and too much bourbon.
"Uh-huh. He let me have this big old yacht and a crew I pay to play deaf and dumb, but there's these two heavies who follow me most everywhere I go." She giggled and snuggled close to me. "But not here."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, he thinks he's foolin' me, but everywhere I make port around here I see 'em. Them and that big old tan car of theirs."
"Big… Mercedes?"
"Uh-huh. You noticed it too? Everybody does."
"Were you in… Pirgos a couple of nights ago?"
"Planned to be, but I didn't make it. Why? Were you?"
"For a little while."
"That where you picked up your little whore?"
"She's not a whore. And she's not little."
"No, she ain't little. But I could bulldog her with one hand tied behind my back." She was fumbling with my belt buckle.
"I have to get out of here."
"No way. We're gonna have us a party, Nick Carter. A private one, right now. And later on all my buddies are comin' back aboard and I'm gonna show 'em nobody snubs Sue-Ellen Barlow in front of all her friends."
I pulled away from her. "Do you mean that's why you had me slugged and brought here?"
"Well… it was maybe a little drastic, hon. But I stayed up all night with those people and I could see 'em snickerin' because I'd bragged on you some and then you made a fool of me in front of everybody. So when my watchdogs said they seen you goin' into the hotel bar there, I just kind of acted on impulse. Those watchdogs, they're good for somethin', aren't they?"
"Yeah. I guess they are. Where are they now?"
"Oh, I got one standin' outside the door there." She gestured vaguely. "In case you're too anxious to get back to your Greek tart."
"She was supposed to catch a plane."
"Well she can wait for another one, can't she?"
It was hopeless, I saw, to try to reason with Sue-Ellen. I stood up, brushing aside her clawing hands, and walked quickly toward the door. When I opened it, I saw the brutish face of one of the men from the tan Mercedes staring at me. In his hand he held a .45 automatic, and it was aimed straight at my chest. He looked eager to use it. I closed the door again.
"Hon, you think I'd let you run out on me after I went to all this trouble? Come on now." She was lying on the white couch, the shirt on the carpet beside her, a hand tucked inside the band of the minimum bikini bottom.
There had been a time when Sue-Ellen was fun and games, raunchy but healthy. Now it was obvious she had changed, to say the least; I might have had fun with her, but her games turned me off.
I walked over to her, pulled down on her bikini. She arched her strong, narrow hips to help. I flipped her over on her stomach.
"Mmm. Want to start that way, like an ol' bull and a heifer?"
"Why not?" I made a lot of noise unzipping my trousers, and when I saw that her eyes were closed I quickly picked up her shirt. "Give me your hands," I ordered, touching the inner part of her thigh to keep her mind on what she thought I was doing. She did as she was told, wiggling her bottom in anticipation.
With a sudden movement I seized both her wrists and wrapped the cloth around them. Before she realized what was going on I had her secured, her arms lifted up painfully high behind her back.
"Nick!" she yowled. "You son of a bitch!"
She fought, as I expected, but I yanked her to her feet; she was small enough so that I could get her on tiptoes without any strain, and in that position she couldn't use her wiry strength against me.
"Now let's get the hell out of here, Sue-Ellen," I hissed in her ear. "I've got things to do; we can play some other time."
"You bastard!" she screeched, lashing back at me with her heels. I pulled her a little higher and she choked with pain. "Dino!" she yelled. "Dino, come in here!"
That was something I hadn't figured on. The door burst open and the watchdog pounded into the room. Even though Sue-Ellen was in front of me, she wasn't big enough to make any kind of shield, not at that range.
"Shoot the son of a bitch!" the girl screamed. "Blow his goddam head off!"
Dino smiled as he slowly brought the .45 up. He had plenty of time to aim and squeeze the trigger.
But not as much as he thought he did. I shrugged and released Hugo into my left hand. Still holding Sue-Ellen with my other hand, I slung the double-edged knife underhanded straight at his throat; I didn't wait to see if it hit the target, but dragged the girl down and away as the automatic thundered in the confined space.
When I looked up, the watchdog was still upright, a look of utter surprise on his face. He looked at the smoking .45 in his hand, then slowly raised the other to touch the hilt protruding from his neck. For a moment I thought he was going to fire again, but a sudden gush of blood from the hole my knife had made settled everything. He toppled slowly to the floor, landing on the thick carpeting with hardly a sound.
I still kept my grip on Sue-Ellen as I walked over to look at the new corpse. First I pried the gun loose from his fingers, started to toss it aside and thought better of it. It might come in handy, and I wasn't going to have to pass through customs on the trip coming up. Then I pulled the knife from Dino's throat; he made a gurgling sound, and a lot more blood spilled out.
"Damn you, Nick Carter," Sue-Ellen snarled. "Look what you've done to my wall-to-wall rug!"
But even the rich and tough Texas girl was shaken by what had happened, and I took advantage of it. First I kicked her in the tail, not too gently, and made her get back into what passed for her clothes. She obeyed sullenly, speechless for a little while. I checked the dead man's pockets, just as a matter of routine, but found nothing to indicate he was anything but what Sue-Ellen had said.
"What are you going to do with it?" I asked her, pointing to the corpse.
"Me? What do you mean me?"
"He's your boy. On your boat"
"Well you killed him!"
"In self defense. After you'd had me kidnapped."
"Huh! Achillion, he'll take care of that mess."
"Only he's in Japan. Your watchdog will start
to smell before your husband gets back, you know."
She stared at the bulky body on the rug and gnawed at a fingernail. "Yeah…"
"Where's your crew?"
"I sent 'em mostly on shore leave. Except a couple o' fellas in the engine room and one in the galley."
"They don't hear?"
"I told you. They're deaf and dumb. Oh, not literally, Nick; they're just trained not to pay attention to anything that happens on this big old tub. You know?" She was losing most of her Texas accent and, strangely, I liked her better for it.
"Will you take some advice? From an old friend?"
"Maybe."
"Get hold of your deaf and dumb crew and get the hell out of this port. Dump the body or whatever you think is best, but if you report this to the police you'll have nothing but trouble. Did this guy have any relatives?"
"How would I know?"
It figured. "Okay. Do as I told you. It's up to you now, Sue-Ellen."
"Yeah…" She was still staring at the corpse, and she looked liked a little girl who had started to play a practical joke and wound up way over her head. Which was about the size of it, in a monstrous way.
"Is there a boat I can take? Back to my sloop?"
"Uh-huh. Tied up alongside out there." She gestured vaguely.
"Then I'm going." I hefted the heavy automatic.
Suddenly she rushed to me and flung her arms around my waist. "Oh, Nick! I'm so damned Sorry!"
"Me too."
"Won't you stay and help?"
"No way, sweetheart. I'm… in the middle of something."
"Honest?"
"Honest. And if you ever see me again, anywhere in the world, you'd better figure the same thing before you pull a stunt like this again." I tapped her nose with the muzzle of the .45.
She kissed the warm metal and looked up at me. There were real tears in her eyes. "How about in Bari next week?"
"What?"
"I mean, I'm supposed to meet some people there. And if you're still in this part of the world and… and not working."
"Oh for Christ's sake!" But then I had to laugh. I kissed the top of her blonde head, she'd been a redhead the last time I'd seen her, patted her marble-hard bottom and went to the door. "Maybe," I said.
